


Dream Again

by CapGirlCanuck



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Celebration of Life, Chadwick Boseman Tribute, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Leaving a Legacy, Symbolism in Dreams, T'Challa Tribute, T'Challa and Nakia really love each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:33:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26227219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CapGirlCanuck/pseuds/CapGirlCanuck
Summary: A celebration of life and all the pain and hope it entails.With deep sadness I dedicate this to the memory of Chadwick Boseman.
Relationships: Nakia (Black Panther)/T'Challa
Comments: 10
Kudos: 35





	Dream Again

**Author's Note:**

> This might not seem like an obvious tribute, but it was where my heart went. Even as death visits some, new life visits others, and the Great Story keeps unfolding.  
> Also, for some reason I feel like it's important to tell you that when they talk, they're talking in Wakandan, and I'm just giving you the English.
> 
> King T'Challa was my first MCU hero, and I am still coming to terms with the fact that we will not see him again. The dignity, strength, and humanity Chadwick Boseman put into the character left a deep impression on me, as did his words in his closing speech: "Now more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: More connects us, than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe."  
> Thank you, Chadwick Boseman. We salute you.

It’s that dream again.

She’s had it too many times to count, and it’s always different, and it’s always the same.

Sometimes it starts happy, sometimes frightening, sometimes weird, sometimes just ridiculous. Sometimes they are in the forest, sometimes in the palace. Often they are children, running through the palace. But it always ends with him dead.

Sometimes she sees him fall. Sometimes she falls over him. Sometimes there is fire and smoke and a shadow she can’t shake. Sometimes there is blood and it isn’t him. And then it is.

It doesn’t come every night, and as days slip into weeks, slip into months, slip into years, it comes less and less often. There is so much life in her and around her, and in and around _him_ , that death has a far looser grasp on her. On them.

Now, if it comes, it tends to come after particularly stressful and overly emotional days, which there have been more of lately.

Last week she dreamed of a stream, water rushing over rocks, small still pools that reflected the blue sky. The river turned to dust, clouds of it puffing up around her feet, and there were children screaming in the distance. She tripped and fell, and her hands found his face in the sand. He was breathing, she knew he was breathing! But every time she tried to scrape the sand away it fell back, and he was covered, and the sand was blood red.

She knows how to make herself wake up, how to lie still, and breathe quiet and slow. How to keep control of her emotions. How to remind herself of the truth.

Last week she woke to his sleepy murmur at her shoulder, “What, love?” So, she let a few tears wet her cheeks, before she clumsily rolled over and cupped his face in her hands.

“Just a dream,” she whispered. “A dream that is not true.” Brushing her thumbs across his cheeks put them all back to sleep.

She knows her time is close, knows just from the way the little child inside her moves. She is strong, and the child is not heavy, but the expectation wears on her spirit, uncertainty warring with hope. Sometimes it feels as if there is a little storm brewing inside her, something strong and energetic and a bit reckless, just waiting to be released.

(Oh, how he laughed when she described it to him that way. “And where do you think she gets that?” He is convinced the baby is a girl. She isn’t sure.)

And tonight, the dream is back. Or at least… she thinks it is.

Once again they are children, playing games of chase through the halls of the palace. They are riding dragons.

(That is Shuri’s fault.)

They are flying, swooping around the pillars, and shooting out a window into the sky, racing each other between the tall buildings of Birnin Zana. His dragon is silver, his favourite colour.

It is raining, a strange rain that is both black and transparent at the same time. She is wet, she is cold, she sees him slip, watches him fall…

But even as she knows this is _that_ dream, it changes.

He is holding her hand as they pick themselves up from the floor, his teeth flashing white as he laughs up at her through the shadows.

“You’re it!” he says, as he lets go of her hand, and turns and runs.

They are children, playing in the houses of the dead, and they are not afraid.

She dodges men with spears, and a panther, who chases her faster and faster, but still she stays ahead of it, and then the ground under her feet is gone, and she is the one who falls.

She should be afraid, should be jerking awake the way most people do when they fall off a cliff in their dreams. But she is not falling, she is floating, floating among the clouds in a blue sky.

She blinks, and slowly sits up. Around her the land is dry and brown, the cracked earth like mouths begging for water, for rain.

He stands, and pulls her to her feet beside him, and holds tight to her hand.

She never asked for the title of queen, choosing instead to serve her country from another level, not bound by the rules of the crown. But it is their land they look out over, and her heart hurts at the sight, and she knows his does to, so they lean into each other.

The forests are like skeletons, the fields withered away to nothing. From the city she can hear the crying, and her heart beats faster with fear.

“My people,” she whispers. “Our people. They are dying.”

“Yes,” he says simply. She looks up, and there are tears on his face. “But not just ours.”

For a moment she does not understand what he means, and then she can hear it too. The cries of more people than her own. Cries in one language, then another, cries from the mountains, cries from the seas, cries from across the seas.

There are tears on her face too.

“How can we save them? How can we ever find enough water for all of them?”

“Not alone.”

She looks up at him, and now he is smiling at her, the way he does when he is incredibly proud of her, completely in love with her, and in awe of the fact that she loves him back.

“The rains will come, the clouds are gathering, but until then, you will have to find water for the people.”

She blinks at him, then realizes that they are standing on a ledge in the mountains, above a small stream, its water clean and fresh. She looks from the water, out to the city and villages surrounded by dry earth, then back to T’Challa. Of, course she will help, she will always help, but why does he make it sound like he won’t be there?

“You won’t be alone. There are others who will help you. Brave and caring like yourself.” He leans down and kisses her. “But you are my only love,” he murmurs.

She brushes her fingers over his face, and then he steps back, letting go of her hands. And she knows this is it. Somehow she isn’t frightened, she can feel the strength and determination in her bones. She will help her people, she will help everyone she can, and find the people who can help the rest.

She watches the line of his shoulders as he walks away, and she feels a strange ache in her chest. “But where are you going?” she calls after him.

“Further up,” he calls back, gesturing ahead to the mountains. “Don’t worry. I’ll see you when the rains come.”

“When will that be?”

He half turns, and his face lights up with a smile, like a man who knows a secret and is happy to share. “Just in time!”

And he is gone.

Nakia wakes in the darkness. Her heart is not racing, and her breathing is steady. She feels T’Challa’s warm breath on her shoulder as he sleeps behind her.

She lifts one hand to her face, and finds a dampness there.

She has no idea what the dream meant, because it was completely different from the usual one, and already parts of it are beginning to fade.

If she concentrates, she can feel her husband’s heartbeat against her back.

He is right here with her, but she thinks, in a hazy way that might mean she is drifting back to sleep, that whenever death does truly visit them, they will be alright. Because she remembers that much from the dream.

_“Not alone.”_

Nakia smooths her hand over the round of her belly, and she feels them both stir.

“Awake, love?”

She doesn’t answer, just takes his hand and places it over the vigorous kicking motion. T’Challa makes a startled sleepy laugh sound.

“Alright, little one,” he murmurs, rubbing his thumb back and forth over her skin. “You should settle down and let your mama sleep now. You can practice with the Dora when you are a little older.”

Whether prince or princess, she knows this child will have the best king for a dad. She is smiling, as she remembers the old proverb: _It takes a village to raise a child._

 _Well, it’s a good thing we have one._ Because nothing truly good or meaningful can be done alone, she knows that.

“Why do you want a girl so much?” she asks softly.

“So she can be in the Dora, of course.” There is laughter in his voice.

“No, I mean seriously.”

A silence, then: “I guess, I just want her to be like you, because I think we need more of _that_ in the world.

“You just gestured to all of me,” and then she giggles. Because even though they are all supposed to be important people with serious jobs (king, spy, researcher, outreach program leaders), movie nights with Shuri are simple fun.

She sobers. “But you know we need men with all of _that_ too.”

“Did you gesture to me, or yourself?”

She reaches back to smack his shoulder lightly.

T’Challa and Nakia talk on softly, sometimes to each other, sometimes to the child that will carry both their lives forward. And then they fall back to sleep, content in this moment with each other.

She dreams of holding T’Challa’s hand, and watching a boy and a little girl dancing among fat drops of water falling from the sky. She dreams their children see the rains come.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading.  
> Kudos/comments are always appreciated. 
> 
> WAKANDA FOREVER


End file.
